A little pre-hurricane birding in Texas

I’m visiting my daughter and her family in College Station, Texas, where we’re curious to know how much rain will dump on us Monday as Hurricane Beryl barrels its way into the Lone Star State.

I’ve been able to get out birding twice since my wife and I flew in Tuesday afternoon. With the temperature in the mid-90s, on Wednesday I went to two city parks, where I didn’t see many birds but logged a couple of surprises and a disappointment or two.

The first stop was Lemontree Park, where I saw a raptor circling overhead that turned out to be a Mississippi kite. Otherwise, not much was happening beyond a couple of cardinals and a Carolina wren.

Finishing off my water bottle, I drove over to Gabbard Park, where I’d visited on a previous trip and had good luck. It returned. A white-winged dove was calling as I got out of the car, and across the pond in the center of park I spotted a heron of some sort. It flew off before I could get close enough for a decent photo. A green heron soon appeared, and I made my way around the pond and shot a couple of frames of what I thought was a great blue heron, although it was a tad on the small side. It turned out to be a yellow-crowned night heron (in top photo), one of three I’d find in close proximity along the water’s edge.

This morning, Sunday, I headed to Lick Creek Park, a hotspot that I’d visited before. I was hoping I might luck out and find a scissor-tailed flycatcher or a painted bunting, but it was not to be. The Merlin app lit up with “painted bunting” three or four times, but if the song capture was real, I saw no sign of the bird and could not distinguish it by ear.

On my one-mile roundtrip stroll, I heard several bird but saw only one, something dark that flew into a tree to leave me wondering what it was.

The storm is expected to hit College Station overnight, and the forecasts say we’re in for a full day of rain. I don’t plan to get any birding in tomorrow and I do wish that everyone in Beryl’s path stays safe.